Messages - toppot

Ah nice. That looks really familiar! I bet that's what I used last time on 8.10.

I might try VDR if I get the time. I know it has been discussed quite a few times, but things evolve! In very short, what's the main reason(s) to go for VDR instead of MythTV today?

Today, I fear very little for 2 reasons:

1. The main reason why VDR was used back in the days was that DVB integration in Myth was not very good. This is not the case anymore :-)2. It appears that most work to integrate TV in to the GUI is in the hands of Thom, and he is integrating Myth exclusively - hence I see VDR being sidelined even more in the future.

- and as a third argument, I believe Myth is better at supporting distributed tuners (at MDs) than VDR. Some could prove me wrong here.

I could be very wrong, and would invite others to comment here. Especially Posde...

a) The clients have 10/100 (maybe even just 10 Mbs) LAN cardsb) I don't have a network switch yet and I'm making do with an old 10/100 hub

Wow, the only thing worse than a 10/100 LAN is when the bandwidth is shared in a hub... Just like with wireless, which also explains why everybody should shy away from WiFi. You definitely need to upgrade here!

c) I suspect the clients are very thin ... in that I'm not 100% sure how LTSP does it's processing but I presume it is almost a case of the server running the application and only the graphics stuff being rendered by the client... sort of like remote X.... if so, my understanding of the Linux MCE Media Director is that it is a rather "thicker" client in that the media applications will run on the client as well as the graphic server, video and audio decoding etc with just the raw (usually compressed) data being passed from the server down the network.

Funny term "very" thin You are absolutely right that LTSP is utilizing thin clients, and that LMCE is nothing like that, it is just diskless clients. One thing to remember though - thin clients need "fat" network bandwidth - fat clients could do with less (Although diskless clients boot and loads faster on fast networks). I am not sure how LTSP is handling video, but unless it is somehow tailored for this, you need a quite fast network to experience flawless video. Just due to the nature of the technology.

Whatever the case, your response has made me confident that when I put the Gig switch in and ensure all internal devices have Gig cards... things should be good.

Right again, but put importance of the Gigabit backbone structure - and the card in the Core should also be Gigabit. The individual nodes could be 100 Mbit, that is less critical - therefore you should not worry if a potential MD only has 100Mbit (but Nvidia GFX).

In terms of the two manners in which TV signal can be captured, that is most interesting. Certainly, as you say, the method of capturing the raw satellite signal and then decoding it in software is very appealing and elegant. And, as you point out, there is more potential there.... however, in my case I think I'll have to start with the alternative- capture the video output itself from the satellite decoder. The reasons are-1) The provider is a pay provider with a "smart" card which would involve the card reader part that you refer to. Not impossible, as you say, but some extra effort and research required.

2) I'm based in South Africa and I don't think there are many here who have gone this route before me so support and assistance from the community regarding the particulars of our local Sat-tv provider are going to be rather scarce... not to mention the fact that I'm sure their programming schedule is not available electronically.

To my understanding the systems used should be very well supported on the decoding part, meaning you can find support in Europe since the same system is also used by some European providers. I am not going to link (due to policy reasons) to info on how to move forward should you go this way - but I can be reached outside of the public foras...As to my understanding EPG via sat in South Africa (I assume MultiChoice South Africa (DSTV)?) is only sending "Now" and "Next" via EIT - but there should be xml grabbers for you. Consider looking here: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/South_Africa_MUG

4) My current decoder does already have some fairly neat PVR and dual-view functionality built in which means that I'm already serving an alternative stream to my tenant (in a flatlet on the property) and I'm able to schedule and record already via the PVR. If I implented soln 2 that would basically replace this fuctionality but.... I'd have to give my tenant access to my MCE installation. I think that can happen further down the line. Perhaps when my current (old) PVR packs up and I'm forced to upgrade... I could potentially just use MCE instead of a new decoder?? Exciting future ahead.

Then I would warn you a bit. Not entirely sure which decoder you have, but if you are serving an individual selectable stream/channel to your tennant then you probably could grab this to Myth, but I foresee quite some tinkering to get LMCE to control both streams of the receiver. Which make and model is this? And how does your tenant switch channel??

You could end in a situation where you actually feel that performance (functionality) from your LMCE based system could feel inferior to your current setup, and you don't want that On the other hand, if you keep your current sat box then LMCE would perhaps feel a bit "bolted on", and it should be the other way round, LMCE should become the core to which functionality is added..

Unfortunately, my stupid dish installer installed a single LNB to point to the Astra 28.2, and a quattro only to Astra 19.2. So the 19.2 goes into the multiswitch, the single LNB to 28.2 goes directly into one of the four DVB-S2 connectors.

Why not spend the 3 minutes to revert this?? And then tweek Myth to use 3 tuners for 28.2 and only 1 for 19.2??

My understanding was that the quattro LNB itself didn't like the little oval sky minidishes. This is all very new to me, but I wouldn't have thought that a quad/octo LNB would need a multiswitch? I thought they were literally just separate, individual feeds?

I am going to attempt to install a new LNB in my existing dish. Unfortunately, as I'm moving house, I will have to realign it; hopefully that won't be beyond my abilities.

Cheers,Matt.

You are spot on that a single/dual/quad/octo LNB can be fed directly in to the tuner without a switch!.... And works fine with any dish type.BUT: Switching is being done none the less. The LNB has a smaller frequency span than the feed it is tuning to, hence the tuner can make the LNB switch between base tuning frequencies (via 22Khz signal: LO 9.75 GHz, HI 10.6 Ghz). For most of the feeds in Europe it is actually also necessary to select the polarization of the sat feed, i.e. horizontal or vertical (elsewhere there is also right and left handed circular and other ways), meaning another "switching" done by the tuner via selecting either 13 or 18 Volts to the LNB.

That is why all relevant LNBs are called "universal LNBs"

External switches comes in to play when you desire more than one sat "position" - DiSEqC switches that select between LNBs, or if you uses Quattro LNBs (one multiswitch per Quattro LNB in principle) that then transform the selection from the tuner (HI/LO and H/V) to just one of the 4 (not so universal) LNBs all sitting in the same casing - called a Quattro LNB.

I stand by my recommendation: If you just want Freesat buy a quad or octo LNB. Feed just one cable directly to a sat box. Align the dish to 28.2 East. Now put the cable in to a input on a PC tuner card, and get that working. Later add more cables from LNB to tuner inputs.

thanks for your detailed explanation. I'd like to add/change one thing though: I would suggest to DO get a Quattro LNB and add a Multiswitch to it. That way, you can easily add more DVB-S2 receivers as you go along. Just get a bigger multiswitch.

For a future proof system you are of course right - you can actually actually cascade multiswitches, meaning adding switches rather than replacing.. But for a sat newbie lets keep the learning curve a bit flatter - Even if Matt actually seems (from other problems he has solved via the forum) to be quite a good learner..

I am seriously considering moving to freesat at my new place (I'm in the UK).

1. Does freesat still have multiplexes like with freeview? If so, how many? Can one tuner handle all the viewing/recording of all the channels on a given multiplex? (I will be using myth).

2. What DVB-S2 card is best to use? I am currently on 1004, will be using myth, don't mind if it's PCI or PCIe. Less keen on USB, but fine with it if it's known to be working.

3. Once I understand the above, the next question is how many tuners, and how does that impact which dish I choose? Currently I use 4 tuners for freeview, but I think I could probably get away with 2, I record so much crap that I never ever watch.

Cheers,Matt.

Hi Matt,

1. Yes multiplexes similar to DVB-T. The number of frequencies (called "transponders" in sat lingo) are much higher though. One tuner can provide the full stream to Myth, that can then record whichever MUX needed, including several.Please look at http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html or http://en.kingofsat.net/pos-28.2E.phpThere you can see the transponders, and the channels on each. Most carry 6-10 free channels, but some are probably not interesting to record simultaneously - like Channel 5 region 1, 3, 4, and 5

2. Can not really guide you there, since I am using virtual Core (actually 8.10), thus my tuners are USB - and a struggle on 8.10, meaning I will be upgrading to 10.04 where they should work fine. Just ensure you buy DVB-S2 tuners, where both DVB-S and DVB-S2 is supported in 10.04. (bet 10 beers that Andrew http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?action=profile;u=38882 can tell you, although 10.10 could vary in HW support compared to 10.04)

3. Like I mentioned above, you would need more tuners for sat... The dish can be whatever, but the microwave head (the LNB) need to be for enough tuners. I would recommend a "quad" LNB (not a Quattro, since these requires a special switch), or if you are ambitious an "Octo" LNB for 4 resp. 8 tuners. The price between single, dual and quad LNBs are very small... And I am quite sure you can find PCI(e) cards with 2 tuners quite cheap.

If you want premium channels (SKY) then this is also possible (and legal), but policies here states that this should not be discussed - I actually disagree with these policies, but can easily understand them, since the step to implement viewing paid TV legally is actually a (very small) bit more complicated then the steps needed to watch the same channels illegally...

You could also consider a slightly larger dish, with 2 (or more) heads (LNBs) for receiving many channels from across the continent - I personally scored tremendous with the wife when I tuned to "Abu Dhabi Sports" to find live broadcast from World Championships in endurance horse riding (which is her passion, mine is sat tv ;-) that wasn't aired in any "normal" tv station..

Some advice please- I believe the recommendation is to put the video capture card into the core. My planned layout at present (I'm planning the system but have already done most of the network wiring) has the core sitting in the closet with the Gig switch and ADSL modem but a long way from the satellite decoder.

My plan was to have a media director in the TV room with the capture card, then the output from the satellite decoder would be fed to the MD capture card and presumably magically through to the core for redistribution / recording etc.

Firstly, is this possible or does the capture card have to be on the core?

And, if so, what are the issues going to be? The most obvious to me seem to be that if you're capturing video directly to the core you don't use bandwidth on the network line between core and switch... the capture input arrives via the PCI bus instead. So any time video is captured it's narrowing the bottleneck to the core. Are there other factors?

I'm trying to think why I don't want the core in the TV room..... apart from noise and space.... when I remember the reason, I'll post back.

You should not worry too much about the bandwidth - even a digital HD ts stream will probably not exceed 10 Mbits, you have 1000!!Most obvious reason to put capture card in the core is that the core is supposed (by concept) to run 24/7, a MD could be turned off, thus disabling other MDs from utilizing services provided by this MD..

There is nothing wrong with capturing on a MD, and then providing it to the rest of the network (if you use MythTV - with VDR it is not so obvious), but please be aware that you can "capture" by 2 fundamentally different concepts. One being a stand alone sat receiver and then capturing via a framegrabber card, the other being direct digital tuner in the MD (or core). The advantage of using a discrete sat box is that descrambling will work just by inserting your subscription card - no fuss. Disadvantage is that you need to control the sat box, probably via I/R (some could be via LAN), and that you only have one tuner (actually one MUX) available. This means that you can only record/watch/"distribute in the home" one live tv channel a the time. Even with 2 tuners in the sat box.

If you go for a digital tuner card you can simultaneously record all channels on a transponder (from 1 to 10), and with 2 tuners any combination possible... And if you put those in the core this would be a service that will run very transparent, which with MythTV scheduling becomes very powerful. With i.e. 2 cards with each 2 tuners, you could watch/record 20+ channels at the same time, provided they are on the 4 transponders you would tune to. There is no "encoding" to be done, since all the system does in reality is to transport raw data, and this with bandwidths way below what most systems can handle very easily!!

Main disadvantage: If you have a paid subscription you would need to have MythTV to use a so called softcam (decoder), and another program (or server) must act as a card reader. In concept it is easy, elegant and well supported. In reality it proves a hassle for many. It probably goes beyond the scope of this thread, but please let me know if you need to understand the concept, and a path how to implement this.

My first advise to you would be to read and understand how MythTV is constructed with one "Master-Backend" (runs on the Core), a number of "backends" (runs on each MD or Core that has tuner/framegrabber cards) and one "Frontend" per MD. This concept is actually easy, elegant and well supported :-)

Good luck with whatever choice you make - and be sure that support is near. You a not likely to make everything work in the first go, but it actually is very possible to get reliable systems up running - even for us "normal humans"

I've just completed a fresh install of 10.04 and after I ran the install script and rebooted, the system went straight into LMCE with UI1 and never prompted for the AV Wizard. I've tried the following with no joy:

- Hold shift key down during boot cycle - no joy- Run command line to start AV wizard (/usr/pluto/bin/AVWizard_Run.sh) - no joy- Edit /etc/pluto.conf to launch AV Wizard - no joy- Edit /etc/pluto.conf to launch as first boot - no joy- From the Advanced Menu, selected Audio and Video Wizard - no joy

Basically, I can't get the AV Wizard to run at all. It never gives me an error, it just doesn't run.

Any thoughts before I blow it away and re-install??

Thanks!

I had exactly the same experience with 1004 - except I never tried to rectify since it is supposed to be running as the core only, hence I do not care about which settings for the almost unused MD functionality it has - mine is running under VMWare Server, so I desired UI1 in a low resolution anyway :-)

I believe I made a thread about this here, but it did not catch any attention, and since it didn't made any difference for me, I did no follow up... Now it does make a difference (to you), so please let me know if I can assist with logs, debugging or anything else :-)

Well unfortunately Google has removed this from their maps - but based on my memory you should drive to Calais, France and then swim across the Atlantic to New York... at app. 4 Km/h it will take some 57 days... Meaning you are in a hurry ;-)

Hi Tony!Thank you for your reply with your method! It sounds great that it works.May I ask you to describe your method with more details? I am new on LinuxMCE and so it would be very helpful to get a step by step guide.Thank you and best regardsRoman

Hi Roman,

Not sure I remember exactly how I got there, but pretty sure it was not the direct way If I find the time I will cook up something, otherwise you can play around a bit, part of the key is creating playlist from the orbiter, and then in webinterface adjust content and media-metadata for these streams.. Only caveat so far is that even if the selector for playlists and even media streams does show the "Title" attribute, when actually playing the "remote" (remote function in an orbiter) will show the filename (i.e. the stream url) - which is typically kind of ugly... I did consider making a local file (with a "nicer looking" name, that only points to the proper url, but did not get there....

Perhaps others now how to get the player interface to show "Title" instead of "Filename"?..

If you succeed then please let us now - if I find the time I will post here... And if neither materialize after some time, then feel free to bump this back before my eyes :-)(I might be spending most of my time with 1004 going ahead, since DVB-cards are much better supported there)

Nahh, didn't work... I knew I was a bit optimistic when rerunning the installer, but it actually looked quite good.Clonezilla did its job and the disk is now back to the state before the LMCE install.

/Joakim

That is not what I have been seeing...I ended up downloading msttcorefonts.deb from "somewhere" - and installed that with dpgk -i

Then I reran the installer script - and it appears to be working. Not sure it is "clean" which is what I have hoped for, so something might break in the future, just from the fact that something in my install is not "standard"....

Oh, and 1 odd thing - I newer gets to the AV Wizard, it fails to load some X config (default)... And then I get the "Starting Linux MCE" text, followed by adding few hundreds packages... And voila! I have a working UI1 orbiter :-) and start in House Setup... (which then chrashed :-(

EDIT: Well actually did not crash - but "enter" threw it to start/log in to Kubuntu...

videos come from LMCE, msttcorefonts from various servers. The ms font installer is also very finicky about time. If it does not get a response it wants in a very short time it switches to another location, many of whom are not available.

Only common thread is your pipe. When one of those big vids fails it starts over. The fact that those specific things are failing leads me to believe it is an internet connectivity issue on your end. If I were to hazard a guess, I would look for packet drops.

Except, quite selective packet drops... Since everything else is fetching as it is supposed to... But your are probably right, timeout setting are just a tad too aggressive. Will try again later :-)

Obviously, it does exactly what it is suppose to do. Die when there is a problem with a key component. Retry, and let us if you have more success.

Obviously, then all is good (who needs a working install anyway)....

(or less obvious - perhaps this error was reproduced 4 times, and perhaps somethings got broken and needed to be updated). Been doing software dev. for too many years not to consider if a problem is persistent or not... Like the fact that the 470Mb'ish wizard-videos got fetched 4 times in the second install, but not in the first, third and fourth - and that had no effect on the outcome which for all 4 instances was exactly a described above - hence probably not relevant to report...